Stephen J. Gertz of the blog Book Tryst reports this week about an, “eye-popping find, a Seuss book in its earliest stage, rough Seuss draft, an abandoned project not only never before seen on the market but never before seen or heard of, period.”

Forty years ago that “project” was to be a sports-themed book by Theodore S. Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. But sadly, the 19 pages never made it past notes, scribbles and doodles by Seuss and an unnamed assistant. Gertz:

It consists of nineteen handwritten and drawn pages, the first seven of which are completely in the hand of Dr. Seuss. The remaining pages are mostly written by an assistant with corrections and doodles by Dr. Seuss, some taped on.

“All Sorts of Sports. Shall I play checkers? golf? croquet? There are so many games there are to play. I could. / maybe.. / shall I.. There are so many many sorts. So many sorts of games + sports. What am I going to do today? There are so many games to play! I guess I won’t. I’m all tired out. 100 GAMES & sports you can play. You can play checkers. You can play chess. Baseball. Football. Volleyball. Basketball. You can ski on snow. You can ski on water. And tiddle-de-winks.

What am I going to do today. Well, that’s a simple matter. Oh, that’s easy. We could play. There are so many sports games to play. We could swim. I could play baseball…golf..or catch. Or I could play a tennis match. There are so many sports, let’s see… I could bowl, jump hurdles, or water ski. I could blumf. Or blumf blumf blumf blumf blumf. Or blumf. Or blumf blumf blumf blumf blumf.”

So why were sports fans deprived of what Seuss tentatively had titled, “All Sorts Of Sports”?

(Had Geisel been provided such inspiration, things may have been different)

When he was reminded of the sports-themed project by a former employee, he gave his reasons for not proceeding in a handwritten note in 1983. Gertz: Read more…